The two of them can collectively rot in hell.

… seems many of the other major international sporting events are just as bad:

• FIFA
• Rugby

What I find most jading about the Olympics now is that it’s dominated by the country’s who either have the richest state sponsored teams, or the largest collection of rich kids.

There are a few tiny tiny exceptions on some of the more obscure sports. But mostly it’s a battle of rich kids vs rich states. Who really cares at that point?

On top of this, it’s an incredibly weird collection of sports that make no sense. Who the hell actually does bobsledding in the off season? Ever gone pole vaulting on holiday? How about Ski Jumping? Gymnastics? Didn’t think so.

And then there’s curling and Foosball – which both have me asking, why the hell isn’t billiards and poker included?

Running, jumping, Skiing, Snowboarding, skating, weight lifting etc, these are sports people can relate to – all around the world – as they are either activities we’ve all done as kids, or things we enjoy as personal hobbies, or in the case of weight lifting, is just universally impressive, so these type of sports give everyone the world over a real appreciation for extreme talent.

But why the hell do I care about a bunch of rich kids in a giant toboggan flying down an ice track? And why the hell are horses allowed? Has anyone even thrown a javelin for it’s intended purpose in the last 1000 years? And why are we throwing cannon balls? That’s never been useful, we made cannons to do that for us! And while we are guns, who gives a flip how accurate you are with your dinky air rifle while your wrapped in a stiff suit? – Being an American, I find that one the most laughable, real accuracy, by those who actually use guns for sport, defense, and hunting, is done with high powered rifles, or normal revolvers and pistols, and the best in the world don’t need a stiff suit to stuff all the bullets in the same hole.

The Olympics, really, has turned into a rich kids talent show instead of a true coming-together of the world to show the best talent their common youth has to offer in sports the world over can relate too. And THAT I think is most tragic.

IOC, THE “CLIMAX OF JUSTICE?”

Who ever and whatever says or likes, this IOC in its present form must somehow be dealt with, resolutely and rigidly. Questions and problems follow the organization for quite sometime from at least early sixties of the century past. Ol Games’ exorbitant program, discrimination on political grounds in downright violation of the Olympic Charter, setting up all sorts of strange sub-organizations like WADA and CAS with as strange authority, vague wordings and concepts like manipulation of competition, numerous standing and ad hoc committees, commissions, boards and panels, multiple bans and “rules”, controversy with the International Summer and Winter Sports Federations (IFs), continental National Olympic Committees associations, etc. The Games have long turned to a set of World Championships in different sports while composition of the IOC per se is the Areopagus of ultra conservative “members” who had devalued and corrupted the whole of the Olympic movement and the Games proper.
Let alone the Games being a site of different political stand-offs, etc., to name a few of its faults.
All this has been made possible due to an unrestrained commercialization of the games and, consequently, the so-called Olympic movement. The financial well being of the IOC and the Games is based, as is well known, on the US aggressive government structures’ financial infusion, along with U.S. television companies and advertisers, as aggressive.
It is understood, reform of the IOC and its creations like WADA and CAS, long overdue, and would call for a serious, large-scale effort, revision of the whole philosophy and concept of the anti-doping controls. The notorious WADA/IOC list of forbidden substances has been growing, new methods of camouflaging those substances contained in the athlete’s body being developed exponentially. Casting a retrospect look, one should also keep in mind that the start to this phenomenon had been laid out by the East German (GDR) chemists and a specific personage (name secret), a Nazi scientist held in GDR who paid for his safety (and life) by developing methods and drugs of hiding doping never sharing those with their Soviet masters. Former head of the USSR Sports Committee International Directorate Dmitri Prokhorov (†) told the story speaking to the Moscow Research Institute of Sports staff way back in 1974. Reunification of Germany ostensibly put an end to that dirt but they would not be Germans had they curbed that effectively and for goods.
In no way such effort, that of exposing the IOC and its presidency’s vicious practices should be stopped.
In no way should its conduct toward Russian athletes be left without proper consequences.

Lev Zarokhovich,
Moscow